the Thoreau Log.
19 May 1834. Cambridge, Mass.

A Harvard freshman refuses to complete his recitations in Christopher Dunkin’s Greek class, setting off a rebellion that continues for the following two weeks, during which the instructor’s recitation room is “torn in pieces by some students, all its furniture broken, and every window dashed out,” a watchman is attacked with stones, daily prayers are interrupted by “scraping, whistling, groaning and other disgraceful noises” and firecrackers, and the entire sophomore class is expelled.

(On the Seminary of Harvard University June, 4, 1834, 1-7)

John Weiss, Thoreau’s classmate, recalled later:

  We cannot recollect what became of [Thoreau] during the scenes of the Dunkin Rebellion. He must have slipped off into some “cool retreat or mossy cell.” We are half inclined to suppose that the tumult startled him into some metamorphose, that corresponded to a yearning in him of some natural kind, whereby he secured a temporary evasion till peace was restored . . . Thoreau disappeared while our young absurdity held its orgies, striping shutters from the lower windows of the buildings, dismantling recitation rooms, greeting tutors and professors with a frenzied and groundless indignation which we symbolized by kindling the spoils of sacked premises upon the steps.
(Christian Examiner, 79 (July 1865): 101)

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